


Warmth

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:24:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly needs a friend and Bahorel is there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

It’s a dreadfully rainy and lonely day. Fitting, Feuilly supposes, for a dreadfully terrible day. He knows he should go inside, for the fact that he’s getting soaked and also starving, but he finds that he’d rather stay out on his fire escape just a little bit longer. People watching has always helped him when he’s had a rough day. Though, it doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything now.

“Kid, I’ve been trying to call you for the past five minutes. Let me up, I brought food.”

Feuilly blinks out of whatever daydream he didn’t even know he was in. He doesn’t have to look down to know that it’s Bahorel who’s yelling at him. No one else in Feuilly’s entire life has ever called him kid, not even when he was an actual kid.

He really doesn’t feel like having company, but he hates turning his friends down and he is starving. 

“Give me a minute, I’ll buzz you up,” Feuilly shouts, hoping he’s heard over the pouring rain. 

It’s coming down harder now than it was before and his clothes feel like led and he’s shivering from the cold he realizes as he stands up to go inside. How had he not noticed that?

Feuilly can already hear Bahorel stomping up the stairs before he even gets the chance to buzz him up, let in by either an admiring or pitying fellow tenant. Knowing Bahorel, it’s the former. Like Enjolras, he can convince people of nearly anything with very few words or at times even with no words at all. Though unlike Enjolras, Bahorel much prefers using as many words as possible and using them as loudly as possible.

He opens the door just in time for Bahorel to come bounding through, promised food in hand. His stomach rumbles at the sight and Bahorel laughs.

“Just in time, huh?”

He hands Feuilly the container without prompting and it feels warm in his still cold hands. As quick as the food was handed over, Bahorel snatches it away much to Feuilly’s dismay.

“I’ll plate this while you change clothes,” Bahorel orders, ruffling Feuilly’s soaked curls fondly. The words are said kindly and there’s a twinkle in Bahorel’s eyes as he said them but he leaves no room for argument as he goes to Feuilly’s kitchen. Walking into it like he walks everywhere- like he owns it.

Feuilly takes a moment to admire his confident swagger before going to do as told.

When he emerges, much dryer and warmer, the food is on the table and Bahorel is doing something on his phone, glancing up when he hears Feuilly. He smiles, bright and genuine, and puts his phone down.

“Much better,” he comments. 

Feuilly knows normally he’s a lot better at this whole conversation thing, but today he’s exhausted in every way a person can be exhausted. So he just nods his thanks and sits, eyeing the food with a skepticism that he hopes Bahorel doesn’t notice.

It’s not that Bahorel is a bad cook, per say. Actually there are many times when he’s cooked meals that have left their friends begging for the recipe. It’s just, like with all things Bahorel, which range from his opinions on gendered fashionwear to his thoughts on YouTube ads, his cooking is an extreme. So for every dish that leaves one begging for more, there is another making one begging for a wastebasket. Joly once theorized that one of his dishes perhaps invented a new type of taste, a theory no one has wanted to test because said new taste was awful.

“Don’t worry, Enjolras made it,” Bahorel laughs. 

When Feuilly looks up, Bahorel’s eyes are on his phone but he glances at Feuilly with a teasing grin. 

“I’m sure if you had made, wait, Enjolras made this?”

Bahorel nods and puts his phone back on the table, grabbing a fork and begins to pick at his food, shrugging casually.

“Said you were having a bad day and didn’t want to be bothered. Figured you still wanted to be fed though but I think he didn’t want to appear to be crossing your boundaries.”

Feuilly blinks at that, touched. There are no words to really describe how much it means to him that he means that much to Enjolras.

“Don’t start crying while we’re eating. This is good shit and it won’t me marred by tears.”

Feuilly chuckles at that and digs in, possibly sniffling a little but it’s been a bad day and Bahorel is good enough to pretend he didn’t hear it. 

(Bahorel Is right about it being “good shit,” Enjolras puts almost as much care into his food into his friendships and that’s saying a lot.)

“Someone should tell Enjolras the key to world peace is his food, not his speeches,” Feuilly tried to joke. Bahorel snorted appreciatively.

“Not one of your better ones.”

It actually was, Feuilly thought. He was never considered funny by any means until he met Les Amis. Bossuet even claimed he had a wit sharp enough to shave with. Something Bossuet also found hilarious because it’s a well-known fact that Feuilly is cursed with an eternal baby face partially due to his frustrating inability to grow facial hair.

He hopes this isn’t the beginning of the end so to speak- where they all discover he’s not as funny or kind or interesting as they thought he was and slowly push him out of their life. Feuilly’s never had a family until these people, not really. He can’t lose them, not now.

“I should let you know though,” and Bahorel’s words are quiet and slow in a way they almost never are. “If there’s anything else I can do about this bad day, I want to. You’re like my kid brother-”

And just like that, Feuilly is in tears. In less time than it took Feuilly to break down, Bahorel is pulling him into his arms and towards the couch, murmuring words that Feuilly assumes are to be comforting but he can’t hear them over his sobs.

“My foster brother, Michel” Feuilly chokes out when he’s able, because Bahorel is lost in a way he never has been before and he feels the need to rectify that even at his own expense. “He passed away.”

“Oh fuck,” Bahorel mumbles, reflecting on his earlier word choice. 

Feuilly wants to reassure him it really had nothing to with that, he would have broken down anyways regardless but he just cries some more. Bahorel says nothing else, just rubs soothing circle across his back, letting Feuilly talk if and when he’s ready.

“I found out today,” Feuilly whispers, minutes or hours later when he’s all cried out and exhausted. 

He’s somehow ended up on the floor, slumped against the couch and Bahorel is right beside him. There’s so much more he wants to say, like how he didn’t even get to go to the funeral and say goodbye or how they only lived together for six months but Michel was younger and looked up to Feuilly and did everything he could to stay in touch. How they’d drifted apart over the last two years, despite Feuilly’s best efforts and how he knew Michel had been struggling. He wants to say all of it and so much more but he’s just so tired and so sad.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before,” Bahorel says when it’s clear Feuilly won’t be doing anymore talking.

Feuilly half shrugs, slightly embarrassed to realize this. 

“All the shit you’ve been through and the first time I see you cry it’s about someone else. Kid, you’re amazing.”

Feuilly shakes his head, eyes brimming with the last few tears he has left. Because he’s many things but amazing isn’t even in the top ten. Michel needed him and Feuilly did nothing.

“Bullshit,” Bahorel says and now his voice is loud again, but somehow still kind. 

“Feuilly, you’ve been to hell and back. You completed school while working a fulltime job and now have the career of your dreams. You never complained, never asked for help, spent your spare time volunteering and I don’t know curing diseases I haven’t heard of with your fucking smile. You’re amazing. And I know because you have ridiculous standards for yourself you think it’s your fault you couldn’t save Michel or something. Fact of the matter is, you can’t save anyone Feuilly, not anyone but yourself. And you did that. The only thing you can do for others is to try and you try harder than all of us combined.”

Feuilly knows that’s not true, not when you have friends like his who all dedicate their lives to others in one form or another, but it’s embarrassingly gratifying to hear. 

They sit like that for a while, utterly silent and still but for Feuilly’s last few sobs and Bahorel rubbing up and down his back, large hands surprisingly soothing. 

“I lost my brothers a few years ago,” Bahorel says, voice quieter than Feuilly thought Bahorel capable of being.

Feuilly says nothing, just looks over at Bahorel as Bahorel continues to stare straight ahead.

“He was a complete fucking idiot, never knew when to shut the hell up,” Bahorel laughs but his voice shakes and Feuilly reaches over and squeezes his hand.

“Had a heart as big as his mouth though, miss that asshole every day.”

From the, albeit vague description, Bahorel’s brother sounds just like him and Feuilly’s heart aches at the thought of losing such a person. He finds that he’s still holding Bahorel’s hand and gives it another squeeze. Bahorel looks over at him, and his eyes are shiny with tears.

 

Ashamedly, for a moment Feuilly can only think of how truly breathtaking Bahorel truly is. His eyes are a shade of brown that Feuilly would think were the work of Photoshop if he saw them in a photograph. Bahorel’s skin is brown with freckles scattered across and his jaw perfectly square, there’s a gap between his teeth and his nose is almost too large for his face. 

 

The moment passes quickly and Feuilly can focus on nothing but the pain and concern on his dear friend’s face.

“I was messed up forever. Friends with everyone and no one I guess, I was so fucking mad, kid. And it was a stupid accident so there was no one to really be mad at. But I met Bossuet and then fell in with our idiot friends and I’m better.”

Feuilly has no doubt this is a long story cut incredibly short- and it’s a story he’d like to hear one day should Bahorel like to share it. He’s already learned so much about a friend he already thought he knew all about-he’d love to know more.

“Without our friends I’d be in a much different place right now,” Bahorel continues after a long pause, voice still shaky. “And I don’t want you have to handle it alone like I thought I had to. I know you’ve done it all your life, but you don’t have to anymore. So, we’re here alright? Every single one of us is.”

Feuilly nods, finding it impossible to speak right and Bahorel smiles even with tears still shining in his eyes and runs his hand up to Feuilly’s shoulder to give it a squeeze. 

 

“Thanks, kid.”

Bahorel leaves a little while later, they hug and Bahorel lets him know that Enjolras made about three more meals along with what they just ate should he get hungry (and Feuilly fails to hide his smile at that because Enjolras just cares so much). 

Feuilly shuts the door behind him, and slowly drags himself to bed. There’s still an ache in his chest with learning Michel is gone, one that Feuilly doubts will ever go away the way it never has for Bahorel. But there’s something else that won’t go away, and Feuilly knows this in a way he’s never known it before, and that’s his friends.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wish I had posted this in time for Feuilly week but sadly, I very much missed that deadline. I actually planned to post a Feuilly fic with various amis a day but clearly, that didn't happen. However, I'm very much still writing those fics. 
> 
> Also, that throwaway Bossuet line is very big headcanon of mine that Bossuet is pretty much how all the amis meet or are linked in someway or another. I mean it's canonical for Marius so why not the others too?
> 
> Any who, thanks for reading!


End file.
